allwheeldad

Depending on what software package he was using he may not have found any decals or badges on his database. I used to do estimates for a busy collision centre and sometimes wouldn't be able to find what I was looking for. He is probably trying to allow time for some measure of repair, just not able to list it exactly as he wanted. There are provisions for manual entries and descriptions, but some insurance companies flag a file that is sent in with manual inputs. Maybe he was trying to avoid any headaches when he could obviously tell something was accident related.

I have swapped out knuckles on a 00 legacy and 99 forester now with no problems. With the legacy I was really broke and needed a cheap fix. With the Forester I wasn't AS broke, but also the bearing had failed prematurely (within 20,000 miles). I would have preferred to let Subaru mechanics deal with it, but it is not cost effective to pay hundreds of dollars to have a bearing replaced only to turn around and do it again in a year's time. At least with going for the swap option you are buying yourself time and eliminating a warped hub as the source of the problem. If possible I always check out the condition of the parts I need while they are still on the donor car. In the case of bearings this gives you the chance to listen for any noise before they pull the part.

I would suggest looking at the fuel filler neck. They have a plastic shroud around them that traps salt and such and rots out the metal pipe and the valve body at the top. There are vapour return lines there that may be compromised and would emit gas fumes while there is still fuel pressure built up in the system. I have replaced two such pipes, but both times there were also P0440 CEC's in the system. Don't know if this helps, but at least it's a place to start.

Got the car buttoned up and on the road yesterday. The rear knuckle assembly I picked up was out of a 98 Legacy wagon. Bearing was good on it and wheel speed sensor was intact so I decided to go for it. I word of advice for anybody else out there who decides to do the same thing, go to your subaru dealer and spend the $18.00 (CDN) on the lateral link bolt and nut. I'd heard so many horror stories on here about fighting with that thing that I couldn't bother to waste my time on it. I took my grinder with a cutting disc and some water (just to keep the washer from heating up and melting the bushing) and just cut the head of the bolt off and drifted the rest of the pin out the other end. 5 minutes tops, and alot less headache. I also soaked all the bolts with a penetrating fluid the night before I got into it. If this course of action is for you, make sure that the hub assembly come with and intact wheel speed sensor. You will never get the existing one out of the backing plate without destroying it. You won't readily find them at part stores and subaru charges something like $300.00 for it (which negates the reason for doing to job yourself, saving money). While I was able to wrangle the car away from my wife for a few days I also took the time to throw on new pads and completely flush the brake fluid, repair the rear wiper motor, patch a hole in the RR wheel well, and mount four new snow tires. Little bugger drives like a tank now. I've only had the car for six months and hadn't done any brake work, so I was shocked to find the fluid was a pukey green color when I went to bleed it. Is there some kind of additive or fluid out there that does this, or was it just really overdue fluid?

Just re-read my original response. Then read the responses from those who aren't complete retards. Thanks you for properly schooling me on this one, I hate to be the guy giving out bad or unqualified information. I had no idea this "conditioner" was anything more than a preventative maintainence thing.

Thanks for the feedback. The hub assembly I sourced out is actually from a legacy, so that is good fortune. From what I have been told by my connection at Subaru the wheel bearing replacement procedure came about because shops were deforming the knuckles. Apparently Subaru will not warranty any wheel bearing replacements done at a licenced Subaru dealership unless they are done using the prescribed method and tooling. I am going to go with the used part (as long as the bearing doesn't scare me) instead of trying to screw around with constantly replacing the bearing. Where I get confused is why there is a problem with the bearing/knuckle when the work was done by Subaru in the first place? They only offer a 1 year, 20,000 km warranty anyways, so I can't really come back on them for anything. I have five years of service history on this car and there was only one bearing replacement on the right rear in all those records. FYI, the warranty is transferable between owners. At least in Canada anyhow.

This is on my wife's 99 Forester. Right rear wheel bearing is on it's way out. No play in it yet but is definitely the source of the droning noise we hear. Thing is, I went back in the service history given to me by the previous owner and she had the bearing replaced at a subie dealership last year and there has only been 30,000 kms put on it since. I know that these cars are prone to rear bearing failures, but c'mon, seriously? I called the service manager at my local dealership and he said it should not have failed, that there is likely a distortion in the hub that has caused it to fail prematurely. I don't want to pay him $400.00 to fix it only to turn around and have to do it again in a year. I am good with doing most repairs myself, but bearings are a pain in the rump roast I don't want to bother with. Is there any merit to getting a used assembly and rolling the dice on the condition of the bearing? I know all the rusted bolts are the biggest pain, but I can get the part for $75.00. I'm not in any position to spend anything more than neccesary (my 99 legacy is pretty much parked right now because I am 10,000 overdue for a timing belt service and can't spend $300.00 for the kit), so I am starting to lean towards busting my knuckles instead of my wallet. Thoughts?

Merry Christmas everyone. Got the kids a ps3 and gran tourismo 5, time to go see what an sti will do in the snow! Be well and safe.

The coolant additive is a product sold by Subaru and is not meant as a fix-it fluid. It is a conditioner designed to ward off the headgasket failure. If this is indeed an HG failure, no coolant additive will solve the problem. Only open heart surgery on the little imp will do the job.

Thanks, I guess that was a little vague. Kinda sounds like I'm looking for a crystal ball or gypsy woman to read some tea leaves.

As suggested by Fuzpile I have reposted this with a new title. I have a 99 Legacy GT that has 415,000 kms on the original motor and transmission. Other than the HG's I have had no real hassles so far. I am anticipating that with this high mileage I will inevitably have issues before long. I am wondering what hassles there are with using jdm engines and transmissions. I have found a front clip from a 99 jdm wrx with the motor, trans, harness, ecu, everything. I have heard that there are issues with clearances around the steering column and of course the cross member will have to be swapped out. Will a cross member from an Impreza swap to a Legacy? I'm not really interested in making a career out of this, but I know it is not going to be a weekend job either. What really holds me back is whether it is even a smart idea to increase horsepower on a chassis with this many miles on it. Am I asking for trouble from the rest of the car when I subject it to higher stresses? Should I just suck it up and admit I suffer from turbo envy? For the price (3900 US) would I be further ahead to just find another car that has already had the work done? The same company also has a 95 jdm wrx with 40,000 kms for $6500.00 just sitting there gathering snow.......

If you are in Kingston Ontario and need a hand let me know. Better to get it done sooner before the ground is painted white:)

I understand wanting to play with your car and give it some more juice, but you will find little satisfaction with some of the typical mods. A cold air intake will not give anything more than the sound of air through the pipe. Take a look at the air intake system you already have; Subaru installs cold air intakes from the factory, just not one with a nice shiny chrome pipe. IMO the best mods to make are found in the suspension. You won't want to go anywhere near a turbo setup on the 2.5 DOHC, so greater power is not a bolt-on operation either. Some else on the board posted about installing 2002 WRX strut assemblies, and I have 02 WRX brakes on my 99 GT. There are lot of parts that swap out between models, you just have to do some poking around to find out which ones. Little things like strut tower bars and endlinks and such can be had from the aftermarket as well. You are going to find very little available to make the car go faster, so I would make it stick harder in corners and have more fun with what the car was meant to do; get sideways.

I bought a 99 Forester this summer with blown HG's for $900.00 CDN. It has just over 200K kms (130k miles?) and auto trans. The reason I bought this particular car was the owner produced the past five years of service history, all of it at the dealership, and she was anal about having EVERYTHING replaced that failed. Given the relatively low mileage and documented service history I felt 900 was reasonable. I like the car for its' shorter wheel base than the Outback, yet it is still more utilitarian than either of my Legacys. Driving them is a completely different story though. Come on to the gas in the forester and the rear end squats right down with a pretty wicked weight transfer and corners are a far slower affair as well. I'm not in the flipping game at all but in my area I see way more outbacks than anything else. But the ones I do see for sale in the same kind of shape as mine aren't really going for much more than what I paid for the car and parts to fix it, so either they haven't toasted their hg's yet or there isn't that great a market for them.

I know this sounds ridiculous, but check under the rear carpet around the spare tire. I seem to recall having an outback come into the body shop I worked at and they eventually found the code somewhere in the back. I don't remember exactly where, it was a really obscure place that you would never think to look. It was the trim code they were looking for as well.

Outstanding information, thank you John.

I have looked around on cars101 and a few other sites but can't seem to find any information about sway bars on various models. I am doing the HGs on a friends 2000 outback this weekend and just got a call from him saying his front sway bar is broken. I guess he took it by a mechanic to get a quick inspection for anything that will fail the safety inspection and found this out. I have the sway bars off of an 02 WRX sitting around collecting dust and was wondering if they will swap over to the Outback. I have used a number of parts on my 99 LGT from the WRX so I know there is some ability to interchange. Has anybody done this sway bar swap or know if it can be done? I am trying to save my buddy some time and money on this one. Thanks in advance.

Very interesting....does this process translate to the phase I ej25? I have done plugs and wires and still the car idles low and rough. I am planning to pull it into the shop for a timing belt service and transmission/diff drain in the near future, so as long as I have the time I wouldn't mind taking a stab at the idle while I'm there. You'll have to excuse my ignorance, but I honestly don't know how adjust the idle on my own car. It is not throwing any codes and is currently sitting at 410,000 kms (256,000 miles?).

After sitting idle for seven years I wouldn't be surprised if many components needed to be adressed. I have a 1978 Porsche 928 that I had stored for about the same amount of time and when I went to get it out there were all kinds of things wrong. The throw-out bearing for the clutch threw itself out, many hoses had dried and cracked, bushings were spongy, the rotors and pads had to be replaced, etc... Not to say that these things will all go wrong with your car, but it wouldn't hurt to prepare yourself for a little more work and money to go into this project before it is a safe and reliable car. In my case I'm sure that all those things went wrong simply because it is expensive to fix and really hard to find parts (it is a European-spec model with a motor that never came here). Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

I was fairly sure it was a 14mm, just couldn't couldn't remember how many facets were on it. Most sockets sets only come with the six sided ones so that was all I had at my disposal. I guess if I am going to be called on to do these HG jobs I might as well make sure I have all the proper tools. As for whether it was an imperial socket, there were no markings on it (it was ancient). But as long as it worked without causing any damage to the heads I didn't really give a damn. I do this work out of my father-in-laws shop and am usually at the mercy of his tool selection. It is well equiped, but many of his tools are used to work on his domestic vehicles. Thanks for the help.

So I was blabbing to a friend how I had bought a forester with blown head gaskets for a song, fixed it up, and is now running like a clock. Next thing I know he is calling me saying he is buying a 2000 Outback with blown HG's and wants to know if I can help him do them. Me and my big mouth. I've done HG's a few times on various cars, so what's one more? What I can't seem to find anywhere is what exact socket I need for the phase II head studs. I used a random, unmarked socket the other times, and I didn't really have alot of faith in it. I am going to be on a tight time frame with the closest store about half an hour away, so I would like to have what I need on hand. The FSM doesn't give any indications as to what socket and I haven't really seen it discussed here. Any leads?

Overheating and bubbling coolant in the reservoir are the common symptoms for failed head gaskets on the phase I 2.5. Maybe do some more reading in the archived files here and you might be able to narrow things down a little more. The coolant smell could be something as simple as a crack in a coolant line leading to coolant burning off on the block or exhaust. If you still think it is a HG failure, prepare to pull the motor and swap out the gaskets with OEM GASKETS ONLY. If you are not able to do this yourself, prepare to open your wallet and cry. The subie dealership near me wanted $1800.00 CDN to do it.

There is no flashing temp light at startup, just a CEL. I did a code scan and it came up with a 0440 code. I went through the usual inspections for that and the most obvious thing jumped out at me; rusted fuel filler neck. It still has the salt trap shroud on it and what looks like the original pipe, so I imagine I will be changing that out soon as well. This woman is on a pretty tight budget so as long as it isn't dumping fuel on the ground she isn't going to spend the money on the filler neck. A little time and cash on fluids changes is one thing, but more expensive parts is another. I'm a full-time student again (thanks recession) so my time is at a premium right now. I'm just trying to help her out. I won't be getting back to her place for a couple weeks, but I'll dig this thread back out and let everyone know how I made out. Thanks again for all the input.

Thank you for all your responses. I try not to bug anybody here unless I have to, I realise it gets tiresome repeating advice and information you have previously laid out (trust me, I have two young kids, I know ALL about it:grin:). I did forget to mention that it was an an automatic and that it came with two sets of tires, those being snow tires and summer tires. Sorry if that led to confusion the way I wrote it earlier. I have a tread depth gauge and each seperate set measured nearly identically to each other, so I eliminated tires as an immediate culprit. However, that doesn't mean that the tires that were on there before these were any good and may have led to some issues now. My friend lives in another town an hour or so away and I really don't have the time to work on my cars and hers. If it is something that can't be remedied with a couple easy fluid changes then she is going to have to take it to a shop. I'll do the FWD fuse operation and see where that gets me.

A friend of mine recently scored a really nice 98 Impreza Outback Sport. EJ22, two sets of tires (both almost brand new), and only 124,000 kms on the clock. I was jealous when she told me she only spent $1100.00 for everything. She doesn't have plates on it yet so I could only drive it around the back field, but it seems to be a really strong little car. The only hiccup was that at low speeds with the wheels cranked over there was a lurching hesitation from the rear end. I have searched some of the archives here and I think it sounds like torque bind, which I guess is common. I have never experienced it on any of my subies, so I can't say for sure. I will drain and fill the rear diff for her some time soon, but is there any special additive I should consider using when I do? Is it worth the time to do the front diff at the same time, or is the problem more or less localized at the rear?